Your Free App’s Donation Link Is One Google Email From Disappearing

ByGeoff Dyers
Android phone displaying a donation screen for an open-source app

Google has stopped AnkiDroid, a volunteer-built Android flashcard app with more than 10 million installs, from shipping Play Store updates that include its link to an Open Collective donation page. The project says it will remove that link from the Google Play version to keep distributing updates, even though its fiscal host supplied an IRS letter recognizing it as tax-exempt under 501(c)(6).

The practical result is blunt: a free app cannot point Play Store users to the payment route that funds it unless Google accepts the recipient’s tax status or the app fits one of Google’s tightly specified exceptions. Users tap a “donate” link, leave the app, and pay through Open Collective rather than Google’s checkout system, the exact handoff Google’s policy generally prohibits.

AnkiDroid’s account says Google rejected its update on August 28, 2026, and warned that the app could be removed from Play globally on September 11, excluding India and Russia, if the issue remained unresolved. Its maintainers published the support correspondence; Google has not publicly explained the decision or independently confirmed why it found the host’s tax documentation insufficient.

Flow showing an AnkiDroid user moving from the Google Play app through a donation link to Open Collective checkout

Google Play’s Payments policy has an awkward split for an app such as AnkiDroid. Section 3 says Google Play Billing must not be used when payments include tax-exempt donations. But Section 4 says that, outside the listed exceptions, apps cannot lead users to a payment method other than Google Play’s billing system.

In other words, Google says qualifying donations should not use its billing service, while also barring apps from steering users to an outside donation processor unless Google accepts an exception.

AnkiDroid’s donations go to Open Source Collective, its fiscal host. The maintainers say they provided Google with the host’s IRS determination letter showing 501(c)(6) tax-exempt status. That classification covers business leagues and similar organizations; it is not the charitable 501(c)(3) category most US donors recognize from tax-deductible charity receipts.

Google’s August 6 email, reproduced by AnkiDroid, said donation collection was permitted only for a validated tax-exempt organization, giving a validated US 501(c)(3) charity or local equivalent as an example. After receiving the 501(c)(6) letter, the project says Google replied that the app still sent donations to an organization “that is not tax-exempt.”

“As mentioned in the previous email, we reviewed the documentation you submitted but found that your app still violates the Payments policy.”, Google support, as reproduced by AnkiDroid

That is not an explanation of why a federal tax-exemption determination did not satisfy Google’s validation process. Google’s published Payments page identifies tax-exempt donations as an exclusion from Play Billing, but does not specify which tax classifications it validates for an external in-app donation link.

The enforcement notice offered AnkiDroid three routes: remove the link, collect money through Google Play Billing, or use an eligible alternative-billing or external-content-links program. The middle option collides with Google’s own exclusion for tax-exempt donations. The last option is more paperwork than a plain donation button.

Google is entitled to police payment flows in its store. But this case shows what Google’s control over developer-facing infrastructure looks like at the smallest scale: a volunteer project’s funding link becomes conditional on a support system’s unexplained reading of a tax letter.

The project’s own public ledger recorded a $77,487.98 balance and a $69,862.26 estimated annual budget on September 5. It also lists individual $5 and $10 contributions. Those figures are AnkiDroid’s own accounting, but they illustrate the mismatch here: this is not a high-margin subscription business trying to dodge a platform fee. It is an open-source maintenance budget assembled in small pieces.

Google does now offer an External Content Links program for US users, but it is not a general permission slip to add a donation button. Developers must enroll, integrate Google’s API, report transactions and downloads, meet destination-page requirements, provide support and refunds, and face applicable fees beginning October 1, 2026.

The program covers links to external content and purchases of in-app digital items, not donations specifically. Its existence therefore does not establish that AnkiDroid’s Open Collective page would qualify.



There is another wrinkle. Google’s Payments-policy FAQ says developers can distribute Android apps through other app stores, direct websites, and device preloads without Google Play Billing. AnkiDroid already publishes “full” APK builds compatible with GitHub and F-Droid distribution.

That means users can still obtain AnkiDroid outside Google Play, and the project can retain donation links in those builds. It does not solve the problem for the Play Store version, which is where many ordinary Android users will find and update the app.

Google’s own FAQ also says an injunction affecting US users means Play will not prohibit links to transactions for US users while that order remains effective. Yet AnkiDroid’s August 28 notice instructed it to remove payment links. The published record does not establish how Google intends to reconcile those positions for donations.

The timing makes the contrast sharper, if not causally connected. On July 22, Alphabet reported that quarterly purchases of property and equipment had risen to $44.924 billion, nearly double the $22.446 billion reported a year earlier, as it financed AI infrastructure and global compute. In the same quarter, Alphabet-level activities, primarily shared AI research and development, posted a $5.789 billion loss.

Those numbers do not show that AI spending caused AnkiDroid’s enforcement. They show the scale contrast: one of the world’s largest companies is spending tens of billions on computing capacity while an educational app must remove a link used to collect five-dollar donations.

That is the hard edge of the economics of maintaining an open-source project: distribution is free only until the store owner decides the funding mechanism attached to it is not.

Key Takeaways

  • Google rejected AnkiDroid’s August 28, 2026 Play Store update over its direct Open Collective donation link.
  • AnkiDroid says it supplied its fiscal host’s IRS 501(c)(6) determination letter, but Google still treated the donation recipient as not tax-exempt.
  • Google Play policy excludes tax-exempt donations from Play Billing while generally prohibiting apps from directing users to outside payment methods.
  • AnkiDroid plans to remove the donation links from its Play Store build but will continue publishing direct and F-Droid-compatible APK builds.
  • Alphabet reported $44.924 billion in quarterly capital expenditures as it expanded AI infrastructure in the same period.

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